1 week ago
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Moviegoers without an investment in this week’s Super Bowl were forced into caring about it when the first look at David Fincher’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” sequel dropped during the game. The untitled (???) trailer of what we understood to be called “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” was a mid-game Netflix mic drop, advertising its splashy, Brad Pitt-starring, Quentin Tarantino-scripted follow-up. But the streamer has yet to officially deploy the trailer online, and a lot of folks were left wondering, “Why the hell is this thing so dark?”
On this week’s episode of IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast, co-hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio share their reactions to the trailer, set almost a decade after the events of the 2019 Oscar-winning film. Indeed, the footage seems to have come down with a chronic case of what Film Twitter calls “Netflix light” — clean, polished, high contrast, heavy black voids of darkness in the shapes of people, fuzzy detail, and an overall dark-equals-serious vibe.
We’re not saying this trailer possesses all those qualities, and Fincher has always run dark, but Anne complained about not being able to see much, literally. As a certain Oscar nominee (you’ll have to listen below) explained to her at the Academy luncheon, it’s not the official trailer version, and a better-compressed version is forthcoming. Ryan argues that this trailer is likely a preview of what the film will look like — that gritty, Netflix prestige vibe. Movies are mastered for HDR screens, so they don’t always look as bright or detailed when compressed for streaming elsewhere.
This week, we also dig deeper into what’s wrong with “Wuthering Heights,” share thoughts on the highly watchable “Crime 101,” and offer up a preview of the Berlin Film Festival.
Listen to the episode below or on your favorite podcast platform.
English (US) ·